For a short while over the weekend, Anthem was practically showering players with loot. Players thought this might be the result of changes that came in Saturday’s big 1.0.3 patch, but it turned out it was a bug. Now, despite welcome improvements from the new update, players are back to the same toilsome grind, with some even threatening to boycott the game.
On Friday night, players started to realise something was different when they began getting multiple Masterwork and sometimes even Legendary items in a single end-game Stronghold mission. Whereas Anthem had before been stingy, it was now raining loot.
Players on the game’s subreddit, unsure whether the new loot changes were intentional or just a bug, begged BioWare to keep them. Then patch 1.0.3 went live a few hours later and the spigot shut back off.
The update was originally supposed to go live on March 12, but BioWare released it ahead of schedule, possibly because it included changes that would stop the game from crashing some people’s PS4s.
In addition to addressing bugs and stability issues, 1.0.3 introduced a number of quality of life improvements like making it possible to launch a mission at any time while walking around the Fort Tarsis hub.
The only thing it did to the loot system was make it so common and uncommon items no longer drop for high-level players, leaving the hunt for the best Masterwork and Legendary items still mired in grind. And leaving many players wishing that the game could revert to that bugged state from Friday night.
“‘Bugged’ loot was the best Anthem had felt since launch,” one player wrote on Reddit. This isn’t the first time this has happened. Anthem’s loot drop rates spiked just prior to the release of the day-one patch as well.
Players were frustrated when BioWare reverted the changes and also fearful that by erring on the side of being stingier with the game’s loot, Anthem might struggle to win over new players. That was back during the game’s early access period for paid EA subscribers, however. This second time around, the rest of Anthem’s player-base has been able to experience the tumult and the backlash is even stronger.
In a post that’s received thousands of upvotes, one player is calling on the community to protest the loop drop changes by refusing to play the game again until the weekend. “Get your point across, simple as that,” wrote Reddit user Afinda.
“Stop Playing the game for a whole Week (Hopefully with the support of the entire Subreddit) to show BioWare that all it’d take for us to really enjoy the game, is to receive loot.” It’s unclear how many players will actually do so, or whether the post’s popularity is mainly due to the sentiment. EA doesn’t make public the player numbers for the game on PS4, Xbox One, or PC, so there’s no way to know whether the latest loot debacle has indeed turned players away or not.
“We appreciate all the feedback from the community on the game. We love the passion and share it. We’re not yet fully happy with the game’s loot behaviour either,” Chad Roberton, BioWare’s head of live service, tweeted Saturday night. “One of the downsides of moving so fast to improve is that we’re making changes to complex loot systems in several areas and it’s then harder to know how it’s performing.
“In the next few months, we’re expecting to make significant changes, but we’re starting with some incremental ones so we can better navigate that evolution. Our goal is to ensure the best possible player experience.”
Comments
17 responses to “For A Brief Period, Anthem’s Loot System Was Much Better – Then BioWare Fixed A Bug”
Honestly, a fix for this could involve something like a random Happy Hour.
That’s not the worst idea I’ve heard for this.
It’s just another destiny clone that’s it????
I see the Anthem’s current loot problems as a symptom of the crappy systems that it launched with. firstly the crafting is 1:1. your green embers can craft green gear… as far as I can tell there’s no trade up to the next tier even if it’s at some insane ratio. secondly the inscription system suck. your low % chance dropped masterwork weapon is just as likely to roll +1% weapon damage as it is to roll +200% weapon damage.
lastly many people have (rightly) realised that masterwork isn’t endgame, it’s a stepping stone towards endgame where legendary are the best items in game. right now Anthem has two competing low % dropping item level which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense
I get BW wants to be cautious about changes but I’m not sure they can afford to be. Division 2 is literally around the corner and Destiny 2 is currently screaming “please come back” (they even have a catch up mechanism). Flying around in a javelin is cool but I’m pretty sure most people didn’t sink 60 to 100 dollars on a flying simulator
The weekend just past was the first time I had done any of the strongholds. It was raining loot and I thought it was great and made me keep playing. I remember hearing 1 masterwork an hour was good. I got 4 in the first stronghold in 10 minutes. I kept thinking “I wish everything before lv 30 was like this”. Now your telling me it was bugged and shouldn’t be like that? No thanks, see you later anthem
No, 4 MW in a stronghold is normal. The whinging is out of hand. They want even more than that.
Typical fanboy response here.
Acquiring MW/Legendary loot is not the endgame. Acquiring MW/Lego loot with GREAT ROLLS for CERTAIN BUILDS is the endgame.
If it doesn’t rain loot. This doesn’t work. Putting in a couple of hours and only getting 2-10 MWs all with shit rolls is not good game design.
Diablo 3 made this mistake. They fixed it and the game was much better for it and made a comeback. Why don’t you crawl back to your fanboy cave?
There has never been a loot game that has launched with perfect loot. Some gamers really have lost that sense of reality over it. The mass hysteria regarding this is less about loot than being that one ‘thing’ that tipped the scales. I find it hard to have any respect for the huge outrage over it. If the outrage was directly about bugs, rushing patches, flawed game play ideas, sure I would buy in on that… but complaining about loot in the first few weeks of a live service game, yeah no.
I love the game, when it works, but it makes me so mad that they launched it too soon. Too much of a waste of a great idea.
I get the loot cycle right. I just can’t enjoy games like Anthem, division 2 etc. Where every two seconds you get a new piece of armor/weapon and it looks the same (or incredibly similar) and its got like 10 more of a stat.
That’s the problem with Anthem though. Its not “every two seconds” that loots dropping, its much much longer. And often useless as its at a grade you’ve moved past.
With Div 2, I felt the loot drops in the demo were a little too much, but really ended up as a way to get resources and money. I only worried about upgrades after I levelled as there were noticeable differences in stats from one level to the next. And from weapon type to weapon type, so there was also the opportuinity to experiment to find a nice combo.
End game gear will probably be different of course, but loot in general served more than just stat purposes.
Extension of ypur story… the community has got even more explodey after the “Few Months Comment” and the weekend patch that has seen the obsevationally tested drop rate from 10% to less than 7% with the demise if uncommon and green drops for L30. It just rains epics now.
Current math has 1% chance to get the masterwork you desire to drop and 0.01% to get a your favourite masterwork with the best primary stat (weapon damage) and that not including get a good roll on the other 3 stats or their value is in the high end of the scale. Which is nigh impossible.
Its bonkers how they dont understand the loot drop chances dont match the complete random elements on the items… this isnt fixed item drops like SWTOR.
If it isn’t fun, why not just stop playing it?
Cause it is fun… just somethings are completely broken andcyou feel like its the straw that will bresk you if you head butt against it… its not about fun, its abput super fantastic enjoyment it has the potential to be if they treated this better.
Why are they trying so hard to fix another Destiny shooter clone like ANTHEM????? When they didn’t try the same for Mass Effect: Andromeda? which I love With or without the bugs???? I hate ANTHEM it’s just another shooter clone???????????? no matter how you see it and what BioWare says???? I hope it never gets better ????
You hope it doesn’t get better, or you DO hope it gets better?
???
The more I play the the game the more I realeyes how trash it is. Whats the point of crafting or having a weapons/armour store if you can only get low level junk. The rewards of the loot from playing the game are better so why bother even have crafting or a store?
The 10 to 15 hours of playing I’ve only gotten junk, none of it has made me go “wow” or a “I like this gun better” I can’t tell the difference between the class drops.
The loading times are the absolute worst!!! And because the missions are so short in length. It’s loading screen then Forge then loading screen the start expedition then loading screen then because the game is trash the equipment you equipped didn’t happen because of BAD GAME PROGRAMMING then its exit expedition loading screen go to forge and then loading screen ……etc
Honestly you wouldn’t want this game on your resume?
19 ads to scroll past to get to the comments, one pop up, and another always on banner add, bloody hell this site is a mess.
Gotta pay those plebs somehow